


Summer Camp and Angsty Teens

by AceOfHearts



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-20 08:04:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18988621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfHearts/pseuds/AceOfHearts
Summary: Kei takes a summer job despite his reservations and realizes that he was right about said reservations.Alternatively, what would have happened if Tsukishima quit volleyball his first year?





	1. Famous Last Words

**Author's Note:**

> Another haikyuu fic but hopefully this one will be finished.

The lock on the door barely clicked into place before Akiteru wedged himself in the crack and forced himself into Kei’s room. Kei looks at his brother, an annoyed look at his face as he stands there waiting for the other to explain his sudden appearance.

“If you’re going to ask what I want to eat for dinner, I don’t care what it is,” he starts to say, but Akiteru waves his hand at him.

“What are your summer plans?” He asks, which was definitely not the direction Kei was expecting.

“Studying,” Kei replies, matter-of-factly. In all honesty, he didn’t really know what he was going to do.

“‘Studying,’” his brother echoes. “But you’re graduating in a few days! Shouldn’t the summer before college be more fun?”

Kei tenses momentarily at the word “graduation” and shrugs, “I’d rather be ahead while I’m at it, not lose the couple brain cells I have left after exams by having fun.”

“Okay, so you have no plans,” Akiteru says breezily, ignoring the glare that Kei shot at him. “Well, I took the liberty of hooking you up for your first job, so you can thank me now or later.”

“I don’t remember asking you for one.” He frowns at his brother.

“You didn’t, but I thought it would be a good experience for you to have, and you basically have the job once you sign.”

Now that last part was a little interesting. “How?” Kei says warily, jobs didn’t just appear out of nowhere and that easily. Surely there must be a catch.

“Easy, I saw a flyer for a volleyball camp earlier and asked the people running the program if they had any spots open, and they said they needed a photographer to help them with social media and advertise on their behalf. The pay is good for someone with no job experience and you can walk there, which is great since you’re out of shape.” He pokes at Kei’s side.

The blond quickly steps away and snaps, “I am not.”

“Whatever you say,” his brother turns to leave. “I told them I would ask you first and you would tell me your answer, so think about it.” The lock finally clicks into place and Kei is left in the quiet. He stands there for a few moments and sighs, unpacks his notes and puts his headphones on, and forgets about the offer for now.  
\-----  
Graduation comes and goes in a blur of events, and Kei finds himself holding onto his diploma in one hand, backpack in the other, trying to make his way through the crowded courtyard of students and families. His mother couldn’t make it on account of a business trip, but called him the night before to congratulate him, and Akiteru had work, but Kei doesn’t particularly mind. He would rather experience his final day by himself. In a way, it’s a bit calming that these three years at Karasuno High are coming to an end, and he can’t wait to regain some form of anonymity once again in university. He looks back one more time at the gates, accidentally spots his former teammates in the volleyball club and turns away quickly. He had been friends with them, once, or at the very least, more than acquaintances, but they might as well be strangers now. He suddenly feels oddly exposed in the sea of people and wonders if they saw him too.  
\-----  
Akiteru doesn’t bring up the job after that day, and Kei almost hopes he would. The days blurred into each other for the first week, and Kei finds himself staring outside the window or laying in bed more often than not. The clicking of the fan overhead matches the rhythm of his foot tapping impatiently on the floor as he attempts to study. After a while, he finds studying meaningless and only a weak cover to hide the fact he did not know what he was going to do, and he thinks that Akiteru knew that too but humored him anyway.

He also finds that maybe his brother was right about him being out of shape as he walks upstairs to his room, slightly winded from one flight of stairs, and maybe he could benefit from some exercise. But, it wasn’t like he had to anyway, now that he wasn’t in a club sport or would be in the near future. He sits in his chair and looks at the notes he has written, which hasn’t progressed any further than two lines on the page since a week ago, and makes up his mind.  
\-----  
“So you’ll do it?” Akiteru says, excitedly. “What changed your mind?”

“I felt bad since I didn’t say anything the first time and thought I'd hurt your feelings,” Kei lies.

His brother side-eyes him for a second and asks, “How’s studying?”

“Shut up.” He switches topics, “What’s the job entail?”

“Like I said, just taking photos of kids having fun playing volleyball, basic things like that.”

“And I don’t have to play volleyball or interact with the kids?”

“Not exactly, but you wouldn’t be so mean to turn down a kid who wanted to play, right?”

Kei in fact, would turn them down, but he shakes his head. “And you said I could walk there, how close is it?”

Akiteru pauses a little before answering, “It’s at Karasuno.” He looks at Kei’s face to gauge his reaction.

Outwardly, the latter seems fine, but internally, he is calculating the odds of seeing his old teammates there. It should be pretty close to none, as they probably would rather hang out one last time before going their separate ways rather than being with children all day. Plus, it is hard to imagine someone like Kageyama teaching someone who had little to no skills in a friendly manner. He comforts himself with these thoughts and manages to smile half-convincingly at his brother. 

“Okay,” he says.  
\-----  
The next thing Kei knows, he has a photography bag slung over his shoulder while being rapidly escorted to the gym by one of the office staff. Apparently he has all the artistic freedom as long as the photos were of good quality and showed the kids having fun. As he walks down the corridor, the sound of volleyballs bouncing against the floor and shouts interspersed with whistle blowing gradually become louder. In a few more steps, he is bathed in the harsh electric lights overhead and smells the familiar scent of the gym mixed with sweat.

The scene hits him all at once, and Kei imagines himself back at volleyball practice his first year, standing in front of the three meter line, ready to block. He can feel his fingers stinging from the previous rally where he blocked a particularly vicious cross-cut shot, courtesy of Hinata and Kageyama. He clenches his fists unconsciously, as if to allay the imaginary pain and shakes himself from his reverie.

He makes his way over to to the gym stage and sits at the edge to take a moment to orient himself with the equipment. The bag contains a mess of tangled wires for who-knows-what, a converter for various memory cards, a charger, spare SD cards, an extra battery, and the camera.

Kei is a bit relieved that the camera isn’t too complicated to use since it’s similar to one that his family used at family vacations and the odd events. He turns it on, checks the battery and settings before taking a couple of test pictures. The shutter speed and quality aren’t the best he’s seen, but it would do for what was expected from the job.

Taking a deep breath, he steps close to the first partitioned section of the gym and starts taking photos. It’s easier than he thought, as the kids stay still for the most part and even come up to him to ask him to take their photos.

He supposes it could be worse, taking another half blurry picture as a result from one of the children running past the camera. A lot worse, he thinks again, deleting it promptly. As he takes in the various scenes around the gym, he's a bit glad that he doesn't have to interact much with the children like the other volunteers do: being in charge and taking care of the handful of screaming children who clearly do not want to be here, or even worse, the prepubescent teenagers trying to one up each other constantly, showing off the little muscle they did have to their friends and showing off in general.

As he adjusts the lens to take another picture, he sees a ball rolling over towards him at the corner of his eye. Thinking it would be one of the kids coming over to pick it up, he changes his expression to seem more approachable and looks over.

Instead, he finds Kageyama looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. 

Oh fuck, Kei thinks, not him.


	2. Oblivious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kei had passed these posters hundreds of times by now but only just realized that a) he needed to learn how to read and b) this was basically the summer training camp all over again._

Kei wonders if some otherworldly being decided to throw him a curveball today. No one, especially not someone like Kageyama, should be here.

He stares back, waiting for Kageyama to say something, when thankfully, someone calls him over to the other side of the court. The blond suddenly feels very tired and slumps against the wall, blankly scrolling through the pictures on the memory card. Maybe this is some terrible nightmare borne from the worst case scenarios he ran through his head before accepting this job. Again, he thinks, it would be absurd for Kageyama to be here, for a multitude of reasons.

A sick feeling builds up in his stomach as Kei realizes the rest of the team might be here too. Why wouldn’t they? They were basically getting paid to play volleyball, albeit with more teaching involved, and they would see each other every day, just like they used to. Fighting off his slight panic, Kei looks up, staring unblinkingly at the glaring lights overhead until his vision blurs.

Sitting there, he is struck with another memory of practice. He and Tadashi would always rest against the wall, their sweaty backs sticking to the coolness of the wood as they hurriedly gulped as much water as they could before another drill. Tadashi, who would always proffer his hand to help Kei stand up in the rare times they could sit during the breaks in practice, Kei declining but sometimes accepting the outstretched hand with a rare smile.

But there was no Yamaguchi now, and Kei wonders if he would ever come back.  
\-----  
The blast of a whistle to signal for lunch jolts him back into reality and he hurriedly packs the bag and slips out of the gym before he has any more unfortunate encounters. According to his schedule, he does not have to eat with everyone but has to be back in time for the afternoon session, so he decides to wander around the empty halls of Karasuno. He finds a sunny spot in the middle of the hallway on the second floor and unpacks the bento his brother made for him that morning.

Akiteru had insisted that he make Kei something for his first day of work, while Kei argued that he could just pick up something from the corner market on the way there. In the end, his brother won on the basis of being the older sibling and all too happily presented Kei with it before he stepped out the door.

He finds a little note taped to the lid and rolls his eyes as he reads it:

_Have a great first day at work! Remember to have fun and make friends!_

A little arrow indicates that he should flip the note over.

_Also can you pick up some groceries on the way back? I wrote them down for you. :)_

He puts the note into the front pocket of his shirt for later and takes off the lid. Despite himself, he is impressed with what Akiteru prepared for him. The rice is partitioned neatly in the center topped with a pickled plum, an assortment of vegetables in one section, a fair amount of omelet in another, and in the remaining section, four octopus sausages in a row. He even took the time to put two sesame seeds on each for the eyes.

If he were a different kind of person, he would have taken a photo of it, but instead, he fires off a text to thank his brother before eating his lunch.  
\-----  
The rest of the afternoon passes without so much as a glimpse of Kageyama, which Kei is grateful for. By the time Karasuno closes the gym doors for the day, he has well over 400 photos on the camera and slowly started to become acquainted with some of the volunteers at the camp. He walks leisurely home, his shadow stretching long before him, the camera bag thumping rhythmically at his side.

He is almost home when he remembers the note in his shirt pocket, and he quickly backtracks to the corner market, quickly collecting the items for tonight’s dinner as requested. Akiteru is waiting in the foyer, making Kei start with surprise as he finds his brother standing in front of him as he opens the door. No doubt he is going to grill Kei with questions as soon as possible, but instead is given the bag of groceries and told to call his brother when dinner was ready.

Upstairs, Kei wastes no time in inserting the memory card into his computer to sort through the photos and finish the day’s task. He quickly deletes any photo that is blurry, eliminating around 100 photos, and the remaining 300 are a little harder to delete. Some of the photos are near duplicates, but with specific details that the other lacks in, such as how the subject is positioned and the lighting. He marks those for later, and minimizes the numbers further based on the distance to what he was taking a picture of. One is too far away, and the other too close. He is now down to over 200 and flicks back and forth through the ones he marked earlier.

He thinks that one looks good enough but goes to the next picture and changes his mind, and changes his mind again as he hits the back button. The back and forth process quickly becomes irritating, but the clicking of the keyboard is interrupted by Akiteru calling him downstairs for dinner.

“So,” Akiteru asks, even before Kei has a change to settle down in his seat, “how was it?”

“Alright,” he answers, reaching for a piece of grilled fish, “nothing eventful.”

His brother is unsatisfied with his dry reply, but does not press any further. The two eat in silence aside from the clinking of their chopsticks, and later, the dishes when they finish.  
Kei rises from his seat when he sees his brother walk into the kitchen to wash the dishes but calls out, “Akiteru.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you…” Kei falters. “Could you maybe help me?”  
\-----  
Ten minutes later, the brothers are arguing over which photo should be chosen as they point at the screen, making no more progress than what Kei did alone.

“I’m telling you, the form looks sloppier here than it does in the next photo,” Akiteru exclaims.

“No, it looks worse here than it does there,” Kei retorts.

“Does it really matter? All of them are good anyway.”

“They’re alright.”

Akiteru lets out a noncommittal noise. “How about we play rock-paper-scissors then to decide which one to keep then? I win, you keep the one I like, and the same goes for you.”

“That’s dumb,” Kei scoffs.

He goes with it anyway, finishes and uploads the photos in no time, and admittedly had fun with Akiteru’s idea.

“Well, I guess we’re done here,” Akiteru says, stretching as he heads towards the door.

“Thanks,” Kei murmurs at his brother’s retreating back. Instantly Akiteru comes back and leans close to him.

“What was that?” He cups his hand around his ear.

“I said, ‘thank you’,” Kei says, a little bit louder, and he feels his brother ruffling his hair like he did when they were younger.

“That’s what I’m here for.” Akiteru smiles.  
\-----  
By the end of the first week, everything Kei does is as if he’s done it forever: walk to Karasuno, set up his camera, take pictures, eat lunch in the hallway, take pictures again, then walk home with occasional trips to the corner market.

He feels more comfortable now, even talking to the kids and the volunteers whenever he’s around long enough at each court, instead of lurking on the sidelines. However, Kei tries to cut his visit short to a group whenever he sees Kageyama accompanying it, but on some days, he’s not there, and he feels relieved. The less the chance of interaction, the better.

He waves back at a group of the younger kids before they start a drill working on their form, and makes his way towards the back of the gym where the older ones are. He doesn’t have as many pictures of them as his boss would’ve liked, and it would be childish to say that he avoided them on purpose on account of one person.

As he nears the partition, he can see vaguely through the screen that they’re practicing setting by positioning bottles at different positions along the net. Great, he thinks, it’ll be stationary for the most part, so I can just take like 10 pictures and leave.  
\------  
Unfortunately, it was not stationary as much as Kei hoped, and they did not use the bottles at all. Instead, they are continuously rotating between tossing the ball for another to pass to the setter, calling for a particular set for the outside hitter, back row, and middle, before hitting the set they called for and becoming the setter for the next person. If they failed in their approach, hit, or set, a short whistle blast from Kageyama indicated that they would have to do push-ups, a punishment that Kei remembered all to well along with dives. To his great displeasure, Kageyama is here today, and is unsurprised that the latter would come up with a streamlined system for a drill, even it may seem draining.

He tries to make himself as inconspicuous as a six foot four, blond eighteen year old could be while holding his small digital camera in his hand. It doesn’t work, as he accidentally makes eye contact with Kageyama through the lens, and finds the other walking closer with each picture being taken of the older kids.

Kageyama is no more than five feet away from him, and Kei readies a sharp retort in case he hears an insult, but there is none. Instead, the other has his back toward him, spinning a volleyball idly in his hands as he watches the drill. Kei relaxes just a fraction, and continues taking pictures of the kids in motion, the ones waiting for their turn, and the ones doing their push-ups. After a while, he looks up after going through the photos he took, and watches.

He sees Kageyama instructing the setter every so often, demonstrating how his hands and arms should be positioned for emphasis, and walking around the court to monitor everyone else. It seems that much has changed in the past two years, and Kageyama has almost no trace of the “King of the Court” persona he held, and is even helpful and approachable.

A longer whistle blast halts the activity and Kageyama walks back to the net. “This next drill is about honing your skills as a setter,” he says. “Watch.” He motions for someone to toss a volleyball to him, and he sets to the bottle positioned directly in front of him, and calls for another ball before the first knocks the bottle over. He sets towards the back as if preparing for a back row attack, and asks for another, and Kageyama turns to face the bleachers for the back set. The bottle clatters to the ground with the volleyball following shortly after. There is no sign of effort on his face, and he turns around to ask his group what they observed. Kei zones out during this and is picking up his camera bag to leave when Kageyama calls out to him.

“And you,” he says, looking directly at Kei again for the second time. “What did you observe?”

The blond says nothing for a few seconds then shrugs. “Sorry, I’m just the photographer.”  
\-----  
“Tsukishima!” A voice calls out to him as he is about to head up the stairs towards his usual spot. Kei turns around and sees another teen around the same age wearing a worn out Aobajohsai practice t-shirt. He looks vaguely familiar but Kei doesn’t remember who he is. Kei had seen him around supervising half of the group of older kids but did not talk to him yet.

“Kunimi,” the other answers the unspoken question. “You’re Tsukishima, right? I doubt you remember me much, but our schools played against each other and I was Kageyama’s teammate back in middle school. ”

Kei nods slowly. He looks at Kunimi again and remembers him with someone else. “You were always with that Turnip Head guy.”

Kunimi laughs at the comment. “I can’t tell whether to be offended that you remembered me with that association or not since you remembered me at all, but yeah, that’s true.”

“Did you need me for something?” Kei reminds him, as they are both standing awkwardly outside the gym.

“Not particularly, but why don’t you join the rest of us for lunch?”

“Um,” Kei adjusts the strap of the camera bag.

“No need to be shy,” Kunimi says, and starts steering him back into the gym and out the double doors where he finds the back of the school transformed into a makeshift cafeteria. Plastic chairs and tables are set up on the concrete paths and grass, occupied by the kids eating and swapping their lunches. The two walk past the children and towards the back where he sees the other volunteers, where he realizes that he has seen all of them at one point back in his first year during Karasuno’s matches.

The ones that stand out are the one Hinata and Tanaka called Turnip Head, Iwaizumi (and he wonders idly if Oikawa is also here), Lev, Kuroo, Bokuto, and Kageyama. He finds this a strange combination of people to have at Karasuno until he looks at the poster on the column next to him.

The poster featured shots of the current team in action in dramatic lighting and read:  
_Karasuno Summer Volleyball Camp hosted by Karasuno High  
Sponsored by Karasuno High, Aobajohsai High, Nekoma High, and Fukurodani High_

Kei had passed these posters hundreds of times by now but only just realized that a) he needed to learn how to read and b) this was basically the summer training camp all over again.


End file.
